Texas! Lucky

Lucky blew out a breath of exasperation and looked toward Pat Bush for assistance. The sheriff's terse nod merely indicated that Lucky should go along with the ridiculous request. Lucky succinctly spelled the name.

"At least I think that's right. She registered at the motel as Mary Smith of Dallas." He snapped his fingers and raised his head hopefully. "Listen, the clerk there will remember me."

"He does. We already checked."

Earlier Lucky had provided the investigators with the name of the motel on the interstate, located about midway between Milton Point and Dallas. "Then why the hell are you still busy with me? If I've been cleared, why aren't you out looking for the guy who burned our building?"

"The clerk could only testify to seeing you this morning," the senior agent informed him. "He didn't see you going into the room last evening. And even if he had, he couldn't vouch for your staying there all night without leaving."

Lucky glanced at his brother, who was leaning against a battered army-green metal filing cabinet in Sheriff Bush's office. Lucky shook his head as though to say that this was a lost cause, and he was tired of playing cops and robbers by their rules.

Meeting the agent's cold stare, he arrogantly asked, "Do you have any physical evidence connecting me with this crime?"

The agent shifted from one wing-tipped shoe to the other. "The exact cause of the fire hasn't yet been ascertained."

"Do you have anything linking me with that fire?" Lucky repeated.

Backed against a wall, the agent replied, "No."

"Then I'm leaving." Lucky came out of his straight chair and headed for the door.

"You'll be under surveillance, so don't even try to leave town."

"Go to hell," Chase told the agent on his way out, following his brother. "Lucky, wait up!" he called as he emerged from the courthouse a few seconds later. Lucky was already at the curb in front of the official building with his hand on the door handle of his car. He waited for Chase to catch up with him.

"Can you believe this crap?" he asked, angrily jutting his chin toward the first-floor office where the interrogation had taken place.

"It's crap, but they're serious."

"You're telling me," Lucky muttered. "The hair on the back of my neck is standing on end. I had enough of jail the night we got arrested for knocking down old man Bledsoe's fence. It was an accident! How the hell were we supposed to know his thoroughbred mare was in that pasture? Or that she was in season?"

Chase peered up at his brother from beneath his heavy brows, and, together, they started laughing. "He went nuts when that jackass raced in there and mounted her. Remember how he was jumping up and down and yelling? Never laughed so hard in my life."

"We stopped laughing the next morning when Daddy came to pick us up. As I recall, he didn't say a single word all the way home."

"The drive from town to home never seemed so long," Chase agreed. "We had all that time to fret about what our punishment was going to be. But you kn

ow," he said with a mischievous wink, "that mare's offspring was the ugliest damn mule I've ever seen."

They laughed together for several moments, remembering. Eventually, however, Lucky sighed as he slid his hands into the rear pockets of his jeans and leaned against the fender of his car.

"We've had our brushes with the law, but never anything like this, Chase. They haven't got a damn thing on me, so why am I so scared?"

"Because being accused of a felony like arson is scary. You'd be a fool if you weren't."

"In deference to the ladies in our family, I hope it doesn't become necessary, but a DNA-matching test would prove that I had sex in that motel room."

Chase winced.

"Right, it makes me squeamish too," Lucky said bitterly. "But even though lab tests would prove that I was there, they wouldn't prove that she was, or that I didn't leave at some point during the night, drive back here, set the fire, then return by daylight and make certain the clerk remembered me."

"The only one who can establish your alibi is the woman." There was an implied question mark at the end of Chase's statement. Lucky looked chagrined. "It wasn't as sordid as it sounds."

"Sounds pretty sordid, little brother."

"Yeah, I know," he admitted on a sigh. "Look, I chased her down because she hightailed it out of the place without even thanking me for saving her from those two slimeballs. Made me mad as hell. I caught up with her at that motel and talked myself into her room.

"By that time, I was feeling the effects of Little Alvin's punches. A few shots of whiskey had made me woozy. I lay down on the bed. I think she got to feeling sorry for me then, 'cause she cleaned the knife wound and got an ice pack for my eye. I fell asleep."